As temperatures rose last week, so did the smell at the beach as an estimated 9,600 gallons of sewage flowed into the ocean just south of the Will Rogers Lifeguard Headquarters. A citizen notified the Department of Public Health about a sewer smell coming from a storm drain late Tuesday, September 22, although Santa Monica resident Leslie Herwick had noticed the stench two days earlier when she was jogging along the bike path. ’It was foul and I remember thinking someone would report it and I did not’need to bring it to anyone’s attention,’ Herwick told the Palisadian-Post. ‘That was my mistake and the last time that will happen.’ The health department performed tests Wednesday morning. ‘There was a foul-smelling liquid discharge,’ said Janet Delgado, manager of the Environmental Protection Bureau. ‘We didn’t want to take a chance, so the beach was closed pending verification of the tests.’ A local resident called the Post, and said, ‘I was body surfing and when I came to shore, a lifeguard came up quickly, driving his truck. He said, ‘Man, I saw you in the water with my binoculars. You have to go home right now and take a hot soapy shower, there’s been a sewage spill.’ It’s very disappointing to have this happen in the Palisades.’ As soon as Wednesday’s closure was announced for the one-mile stretch of beach, the Bureau of Sanitation checked the sewer pipes above the bluffs, along Pacific Coast Highway and through the low-flow diversion devices, by running green dye through the system. By evening it had been determined that there wasn’t a leak or a break from any of those sources. On Thursday, the Bureau of Sanitation closed a lane of PCH nearest the bluffs while workers investigated the hillside between Chautauqua and Potrero Canyon beyond the 10-ft.-high block wall. Workers discovered flood drains clogged with plants and standing water. They cleared the grates and notified Caltrans, which oversees the drains. A transient, who identified himself as Mo, told the Post that a sewer line had been leaking for three to four years above his hillside, but had recently busted. ‘It’s really coming down,’ Mo said. ‘If someone is doing laundry you can see the soapsuds.’ Sanitation workers discovered that an eight-inch sewer pipe that originally connected a house (now demolished) at 15054 Corona Del Mar to the main sewer system had become uncapped. It was sticking out of the hillside and was spewing sewage down into a flood drain along PCH. According to Michelle Vargas, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Works, a main sewer line that runs under Corona del Mar was partially blocked by a tree root. The lateral sewer line to the empty lot then acted as a siphon. The drain at the base of the hill, to which the sewage flowed, is used solely to prevent flooding on PCH, sending water on the north side of the highway directly into the ocean. Community activist George Wolfberg asked why the sewage spill was not diverted into a low-flow diversion device. Vargas said that runoff along PCH does not go through this system and that the question should be addressed to Caltrans. Judy Gish, spokesperson for Caltrans, was queried about this and responded: ‘The highway drains are designed to keep the highway from flooding, and that’s all they’re designed for; their function is not to catch sewage that comes down from the hillside.’ She added that highways are regularly cleaned and maintained, which is how Caltrans mitigates pollution from vehicles. ‘It is very unusual that wastewater’will flow down the side of the hill,’ Vargas said.”Had that sewer lateral been capped properly, the wastewater backup would have gone through one of our maintenance holes on Corona Del Mar and our crews would have responded there. The wastewater would have then flowed down the hill to our low-flow diversion on Chautauqua.” The beach reopened at noon on Saturday and, according to Vargas, the lateral sewer pipe has been permanently capped.
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